Skip to main content

Rivers of Power - Laurence Smith ****

I've never been entirely convinced that geography is really a science, but if there was a book that was likely to do so, it's Rivers of Power. What's more, Laurence Smith manages to bring alive the importance of rivers to the Earth, but more particularly to humanity, with some excellent storytelling.

The book starts with a nilometer, an ancient structure for measuring the height of the Nile - and the role the Nile has played in Egyptian culture. From here we open out to a whole host of rivers around the world. Rather than focus chapter by chapter on particular locales, Smith leaps from place to place, covering the roles of rivers in, say, wars or trade or climate change. In doing so, he manages to communicate his enthusiasm and a feeling of engagement that makes the book both approachable and enjoyable. There's always something new and different turning up - no one, surely, would expect, for example, a chapter to begin with a discussion of the superhero movie Black Panther, using the fictional nation of Wakanda as a lead into a section on Ethiopia.

I was concerned that there wouldn't be much science in the book, but in practice there is a fair amount, both in the description of the geological mechanisms and in the scientific approach used in the investigations of rivers in the associated stories. I do think the blurb goes too far in saying 'our quest for mastery [of rivers] has spurred staggering advances in engineering, science and law' - I take the point about engineering and to some extent law, but I can't think of a single fundamental scientific discovery that is related to our quest for mastery of rivers.

Because rivers are so personal, I was slightly disappointed there wasn't much mention of the UK, but this is a book that's very much about the world view. So we see a lot from the big rivers of the world and rather less from the smaller, more intimate rivers that have still had big parts to play in local lives. Even so, the book rarely disappoints.

I can't say this book has totally converted me to the cause of geography - but as a one-off, it's certainly a recommended read.

Paperback:    
Kindle 
Using these links earns us commission at no cost to you
Review by Brian Clegg

Comments

Popular posts from this blog

Target Earth – Govert Schilling *****

I was biased in favour of this great little book even before I started to read it, simply because it’s so short. I’m sure that a lot of people who buy popular science books just want an overview and taster of a subject that’s brand new to them – and that’s likely to work best if the author keeps it short and to the point. Of course, you may want to dig deeper in areas that really interest you, but that’s what Google is for. That basic principle aside, I’m still in awe at how much substance Govert Schilling has managed to cram into this tiny book. It’s essentially about all the things (natural things, I mean, not UFOs or space junk) that can end up on Earth after coming down from outer space. That ranges from the microscopically small particles of cosmic dust that accumulate in our gutters, all the way up to the ten kilometre wide asteroid that wiped out the dinosaurs. Between these extremes are two topics that we’ve reviewed entire books about recently: meteorites ( The Meteorite Hunt...

The Decline and Fall of the Human Empire - Henry Gee ****

In his last book, Henry Gee impressed with his A (Very) Short History of Life on Earth - this time he zooms in on one very specific aspect of life on Earth - humans - and gives us not just a history, but a prediction of the future - our extinction. The book starts with an entertaining prologue, to an extent bemoaning our obsession with dinosaurs, a story that leads, inexorably towards extinction. This is a fate, Gee points out, that will occur for every species, including our own. We then cover three potential stages of the rise and fall of humanity (the book's title is purposely modelled on Gibbon) - Rise, Fall and Escape. Gee's speciality is palaeontology and in the first section he takes us back to explore as much as we can know from the extremely patchy fossil record of the origins of the human family, the genus Homo and the eventual dominance of Homo sapiens , pushing out any remaining members of other closely related species. As we move onto the Fall section, Gee gives ...

Govert Schilling - Five Way Interview

Govert Schilling is an acclaimed and prize-winning freelance astronomy writer and broadcaster in the Netherlands. His articles appear in Dutch newspapers and magazines, but he also has written for New Scientist, Science and BBC Sky at Night Magazine, and he is a contributing editor of Sky & Telescope. He wrote dozens of books (including a couple of children’s books) on a wide variety of astronomical topics, many of which have been translated into English, German, Italian, and Chinese, among other languages. In 2007, the International Astronomical Union (IAU) named asteroid 10986 Govert after him, and in 2014, he received the David N. Schramm Award for high-energy astrophysics science journalism from the High Energy Astrophysics Division of the American Astronomical Society.His latest book is Target Earth . Why science? We live in troubling times. Fake news and conspiracy theories abound, and trust in science is diminishing. Many adults don't seem to realize that almost everythi...